Galactic Calendar 259872/ 2000 [ Sol Year 4387/ Day 154 of 365. Sol standard year]
Days after of Crash landing/ 2
Uninhabited Island / Underground tunnel/ Circle Cavern
Galactic Standard Time / 1725
“HOW MANY!????” Burt cried out in shock. For a moment he felt faint, that many people, what had crashed onto the planet? Thiss had to be one for the records books, he’d never even heard of such numbers befor. All he could think of was with so many new people, so many things would change.
He thought about everyone who would cry for joy when they heard of so many new bloodlines. And the groups he’d heard of that would do anything to capture them to use. The resource value they represented alone. And if half of them were able to repair technology, they could turbocharge any nation or cult. And if they had any knowledge of how to tame a Ruin……
But then his thoughts died down as he realized it. There was no way that all those people were on this island! He would have run into them before now, and he would have felt the impact of all those wrecks! So that made him ask one question that he had to have an answer to. “Where are they all?”
“We don’t know, we only have a small number of them in the escape capsules. We’re a small group, a few crewmembers and passengers. So how’d you get here?” The one with purple streaks in her black hair asked him as she glared at him.
He looked between the two of them and tried to figure out how to ask. “A long story my dear? I’m sorry but your name is?”
“Sara, this is Paige,” Sara said as she gestured to the other women.
Burt nodded, trying to figure out what to say so he would keep his head. He had done this a million times since he had been a teen, letting his mouth save him. But he had never been the first person to tell Newcomers about the world. There was so much to tell them, things that they had to know to live here. From how active Ruins were to the truth of the Ancients, and what they had to defend themselves from. And how deadly it was to travel on the seas, that was the worst of the problems here.
“Well, I came here on a moderately high-tech speed boat. Crashed it a few miles up the coast on the other side of the mountain that way. I think it was about close to a month ago really,” Burt said as he looked at Sara.
So far, Paige was acting like the muscle, so talking to Sara kept them happy. Paige had to be someone who could tell if he was lying, and he wouldn’t for now. He’d tell them everything, and hopefully, they would stay away from the manic groups out there. If one of the ones that wanted him dead found this place, well he wouldn’t be taken alive to be tortured to death. Better to go out fighting than the long pain his capture would lead to.
“Month? So you were born on this planet?” Sara asked softly.
Burt nodded, trying to keep his real emotions off his face. His birth was a tricky subject for him. The less he said, the better. But the barebones were all that they needed to know for now. “Yes. About five years ago I went out on my own when I turned twenty. Been living on my own ever since, and I couldn’t be happier. Sure, a more stable life might have been better, but I’m good.”
“Sounds like you’ve been living a life worth living then. Mind telling me what you were running from?” Paige asked and Burt looked at her.
Something about her reminded him of the Old Lady back home, how she could always see through all lies. For a time he thought it might be part of a Skill Set, but all his research came up with nothing. When he told his friends, they had all admitted that they had all searched for that same Skill once or twice. That was a few months before he left his home, and he had always kept an ear out for any news of his home.
“To put it simply sentient life has been here long enough to form divisions. Some wars here and there, a few alliances and what have you. I ran across the work of a particularly mad bunch a few months back. To make a long story short, well they wanted to sacrifice me to their god,” Burt said with a shrug.
He held back a smirk at the expressions on the women’s faces, and he felt a spark of joy. Whenever he told others about his daring do, he always liked the way they reacted. He hoped it would let them believe him more, he would need their trust to save them. If some of the Eaters had come across them before he had, he didn’t want to think of how many they would have lost. He needed to warn them about all the problems out there, all the scum and the vile. But if he give a good impression, maybe they would join his home.
And with the pirate fleets only growing, they needed all the help they could get. The last he heard before he was marooned was that the Alliance was hit hard on one of their islands. Plus there was the rumor that a new Holy Crusade had been launched from the Godly Realm. If those things came across New Comers, he didn’t want to know what they would do. See them as pagans or heretics, both had a limited lifetime among those beings.
“Well now, I think you need to talk to the rest of our party. You don’t mind of course?” Sara said as she looked at Burt’s eyes.
Burt smiled back, but inside he was very happy. If this was just a scouting party, then maybe they could help each other. If they were looking for a place to defend themselves, then maybe those little guys could help them all. “Of course, I’ll be honored to. Need some food? It’s a bit late but I don’t know when you Void Travelers eat and all.”
Sara smiled softly and led the way into the “We already ate. Hey guys, we found someone!”
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Jinn looked up as Sara called down. As he, Al, and Racha looked up Sara came into the cavern. She was leading someone dressed unlike any of the passengers or crew of the Spirit. For a second he was shocked, then he realized that this person had to have lived here. If he was from the Yard Ship then maybe they would be able to rescue the others. But if not, then they were in a worse mess than he feared. And the man was smiling wide as he looked at the three people waiting for him, and Jinn felt there was a chill down his spine.
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“Guys, meet Burt! He’s a resident of this fair world. And he’s from another island with a name. And I think he had a lot to tell us about some other residents!” Sara said as she moved her gaze around the chamber.
Jinn felt his breath catch, he hated that he was right. If there was a place with a name, that meant that more people needed to know it. When a place had a name, it was to tell others where they were going. Names were also used to divide people, and that meant war. And war meant a lot of people. And a lot of people meant nation or at least city-states. And city-states meant diplomacy and that meant a lot of trouble for them.
“Hello, I’m Jinn. This is Al and Racha. Roy is asleep in there,” Jinn said as he gestured towards the cave in the cavern.
Burt nodded as he sat down and looked at the others, a grin on his face. “Well friends, welcome to the world! This sphere is wild and crazy, serene and calm! Every place is different, friends or foes! Talkers or Beasts! The one thing we all know is that everything is change!”
Jinn only looked at the man, trying to understand. The way he was talking, it was all true. But that didn’t make sense, at least on the surface. And this Burt seemed to not be lying, but then what was the truth then? Everything was change? That didn’t sound good. But then the area of change, and what kind, now that was the question.
“What do you mean, change? How does it change?” Racha demanded, echoing Jinn’s thoughts.
As he looked at her, he inwardly snorted. He should have known she would ask that. Say what you will about the Service, they were always after the truth. And the way Burt was trying to put on a show, it would have bothered her.
“Well, my people are descended from a “slow boat colonizer” from Earth’s second expansion. When we crashed here, we came across some people from The Federation. Let me tell you, finding out what happened to the Homeworld set off a few of the security personnel!”
“A Slow boat? What was it, what was its name? Where did it come from?“ Al asked and Burt laughed a little.
“Why good sir, I’m from the people of the Great Founding Father of Earth, sent out by the United Earth forces!” Burt said as he bowed his head.
Al went still and his eyes went wide. Jinn went still as well, remembering how Al had talked to him about that ship once. It was after the Spirit had received notice that a colony had been founded, and then it went to the Lost Colonies. Lost Colonies were the ships that had been sent out to colonize a planet that disappeared. Sometimes they were found, having crashed and the survivors had lived. Other times they were found with everyone aboard dead. And of the slow boats sent out by the United Earth Government, all but three were among the Lost Colonies. To have found a descendent here, was beyond anything that Jinn thought they would find.
“That ship crashed here? Do you still live in it?” Al asked, a note of excitement in his voice.
Burt just shook his head, a somber look on his face. “No. we destroyed most of it to fight against the forces of another ship, The New Roman.”
“The New Roman crashed here too!? Two of the lost ships crashed here?! And this place was never found?!” Al asked in shock as he fell backward.
Jinn felt the last bit of hope that they might be rescued died. There it was, there was nothing anyone off the planet could do to help them. They had to get to the Yard-Ship, there was nothing else they could do. That was the only hope they had of any of them getting off the world and back to the Federation.
“Yeah, and those people have gone a bit mad. Majorly mad really if I’m honest. They made a nation called the Holy Kingdom, a humanist empire that kills anything not human. They’ve launched ‘Crusades’ to bring ‘justice’ and ‘civilize’ the pagans. Kinda a big thing, but only part of the problems really,” Burt said softly.
“Wait, let me get. Some places are run by Corporations, right?” Jinn asked dryly and he closed his eyes as Burt nodded.
“Yeah, how’d you guess? They call themselves the New World Corp, and said something about a war. They were supposedly setting up a fleet base somewhere when they crashed, so they had a big science base. Gave them quite an advantage for a while,” Burt said as they suddenly heard a growl.
Burt looked away and sighed. “Sorry, I was looking to grab a pod from up there. Have to be fast to grab them, but they are perfect for living on the go and all.”
“Catch,” Racha said as she reached into her bag and pulled out a pod she threw to him.
“Oh, how so?” Jinn asked and Burt grinned as he chuckled.
“Why, there are so many Alpha beasts around here. Some of them have armies that number in the hundreds, whole species that live to follow orders. And just surviving is a chore here really!” Burt said with a grim laugh.
Jinn looked at Racha and gave her a quiet nod. She nodded back, and that was enough. The two of them needed to talk, without their new friend hearing them.
As Burt started to eat, Racha stood up and walked towards the ramp up to the outside. “Sara, let’s move. I’ll take a look around and make sure nothing else is here. Al, Jinn, you two take the last watch so get some sleep once I’m back.”
Burt waved at her as he looked back at Jinn, a wide smile on his face. “So, the lady is the boss?”
“We don’t have a leader leader. More like we all try and keep the others alive. What about you? Were you with anyone when you were shipwrecked?” Jinn asked and Burt laughed.
“No leader, just an enemy. Of course that was before one of the beasts here killed him, save my life. Now I would thank it but it tried to make a meal out of me, so there’s that. And I’ve met few if any friends here since. Lovely place, really,” Burt said with a laugh.
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Al stayed silent, his mind going strange places as he leaned against the stone wall. He couldn’t believe any of this, nothing made sense! The sheer chance that there would be survivors from the Yard-Ship was monumental, but now this? A descendent of a Lost Colony ship, and he said there were others! That was something he could believe after all the data was there. He knew enough about the Lost Colonies, a friend had shared his research on them before his class split. The Founding Father was launched during the second era, and the New Roman the era after, a good fifty years later.
Both of those ships were among the best that the shipyards had made back then. From the engine to the generator and the navigation subroutines, they were all second to none. His friend had researched every aspect of the ships, from their captains to their course. And their course was what was bothering him.
Both ships had gone in the opposite direction of each other, there was no way they could find the same world. The only way that the two ships could have crashed was outsider intervention. And with what he had just been told, everything made sense. He had hoped that he was wrong, he really. But if he was right, then his worst-case scenario was true, it was the only explanation that made sense.
Up until now, he was hoping that the planet had a Ruin that hid it, that all the Spirit had done was discover it by accident. But the Founding Father and New Roman on the same planet? That didn’t make sense, both of them had gone in opposite directions and been sent out decades apart! That meant that he was right, that the reason the Spirit of Adventure crashed was because of Ruin!
He knew a bit more about Ruins than most people, a lot more thanks to another classmate. If he was right then one of the greatest of all Ruins was above them, and for some reason, it was still active. But Void Ruins were the worst of all, all the threats of vacuum combat and the impossibility of Ruin raiding.
But if he was right, they would need to raid it to even think of finding the way home. There had to be a Ruin up there, and one that could create Wormholes. It all made sense, everything lined up. The wormholes would open before a ship. When the ship passed through it, their electronics would be destroyed. And the survivors would crash onto the planet that was behind the Ruin.
Everything…..Al went still as he suddenly realized something. his theory, it didn’t make sense. Oh, sure, most of it was probably true. But how had they gotten into the escape capsules? And why had they lost their memories of what had happened to them before that? That was the one problem that didn’t make sense.
Unless, no. No there was no way, no way at all. How could the Ruin have moved them into the escape capsules?
As Racha looked behind the bush Paige and Sara had pointed out, she frowned. She looked at the tracks she found and then let her eyes follow them. So far the story that Burt told them was true, and that was a problem. If half of what Burt told them was true, then their mission was more urgent. Once they were behind the hull of the Yard-Ship, they could gather the other castaways. Once they were all safe, they could try and figure out what to do. If the political situation was just what Burt told them, then they had to stay away from this ‘Holy Kingdom’. They hadn’t found any of the other species that made up the crew, but they had to be out there. If they were as bad as Burt painted them, then they were in real trouble. She didn’t want to even think about how they would act with people who lived with non-humans!
Those kinds of filth were always survivors, the scum was like hard-to-kill bugs. Let their message be recorded and in a few generations there were new ones. The right way to deal with them was to rip them apart, destroy and show their ideas were worthless. Make them the idiots, the bigots and it kept them from respawning for a while. But then they always came back.
All she could do was hope that they could get the Yard-Ship working. Once they had the right tech they could make things to keep them alive. And if it was from the black market, then it might have a few War-robot designs in its database. But even if it didn’t, Al might be able to make something that they can use to handle the personal problem.
“Find anything?” Sara asked and Racha shook her head.
“No, keep watch and I’ll see you at shift change,” Racha said softly as she moved toward the cave mouth. Her thoughts were moving at light speed, and one thing she was sure of. No matter what happened, they would survive on this planet. Of that, she would accept nothing else.